The war in Ukraine has reshuffled the cards and changed geopolitical balances. In Iran, the regime is totally aligned with Russia, whereas until now it was only a circumstantial ally of Moscow.
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The announcement at the beginning of the month – from American sources, but denied by Tehran – of the forthcoming delivery of hundreds of Iranian military drones to Russia should hardly come as a surprise. First, Iran has acquired undeniable know-how in these military technologies and its rapprochement with Moscow is obvious, and yet it was not won in advance. For the Franco-Iranian lawyer Ardavan Amir-Aslani, specialist in international relations of Iran, the crisis and the international sanctions which immediately hit Russia could have been taken advantage of by the Iranians: “Iran is the only country in the world that has sufficient mineral or hydrocarbon resources to compensate for the Russian withdrawal from this market.”
“Iran in this crisis had an exceptional chance to emerge from the international ostracism which the country has been subjected to for forty years. Well, they missed it! They decided not to take advantage of the situation.”
Ardavan Amir-Aslani, Franco-Iranian lawyerat franceinfo
On the contrary: Russian-Iranian economic relations jumped in value by a solid 10% over the first four months of the year, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak confirmed in May. Today, Iran is one of Russia’s main allies in circumventing embargoes and sanctions, as explained Ardavan Amir-Aslani: “Iran today finds itself in a situation where it offers its airspace to the Russians, the Iranian space is completely open to them. Beyond that, Iran also serves as an escape from international sanctions: a certain number of large international groups sell their products to the Russians through sales made for the benefit of Iranian industrialists. I know that there are dozens of containers of sugary soft drinks exported to Russia through Iranian territory”.
But the problem for the Iranians is that they also find themselves in competition with the Russians. “They had some setbacks lately because they saw that the Chinese who were the biggest buyer of Iranian oil so far now preferred to buy Russian oil because the Russians were selling their oil at a bigger discount.”
“Iran considers itself an ally of the Russians but I don’t know if the Russians read the same as the Iranians.”
Ardavan Amir-Aslaniat franceinfo
Quoting Tsar Alexander III, Vladimir Putin did not hesitate, in a public address in 2015, to recall that traditionally, Russia has only two allies: its navy and its army.